Eat, Drink and Be Wary

By GLENN COLLINS

Published: July 18, 2012

The prosecutor and team of detectives in Linda Fairstein's new crime novel, ''Night Watch,'' navigate and dine their way through a dozen restaurants. Here are a few that add clues and plot points (not to mention entrees) to the spicy murder miasma.GLENN COLLINS

LUT?E The fictional reopening of the renowned restaurant, which received four stars from The New York Times in 1972, prompts two murders and brings forth two idiosyncratic clues: Lut? matchbooks. (Formerly 249 East 50th Street, Manhattan)

TIRO A SEGNO Crucial information is revealed and a key murder suspect introduced in this venerable Greenwich Village dining club with a shooting range in the basement. (77 Macdougal Street, Manhattan)

THE ''21'' CLUB The Prohibition-era wine cellar in this former speakeasy (with its secret door) reveals a clue vital to the book's denouement. (21 West 52nd Street, Manhattan)

MICHAEL'S A clubhouse for the best friends of the prosecutor Alexandra Cooper; they remember that the restaurant took center stage after a nearby murder in a previous mystery. (24 West 55th Street, Manhattan)

RAO'S A prosecutorial touchstone (there was an actual killing in the restaurant in 2003) where, in an earlier mystery, detectives and prosecutors ran a murder suspect to ground. (455 East 114th Street, Manhattan)

SPARKS STEAK HOUSE Detectives joke that they should shun not only Sparks (where Big Paulie Castellano was shot outside) but also Umberto's Clam House (where Joey Gallo was shot inside) if one of the book's key murder suspects, whose life has been threatened, dines at either place. (210 East 46th Street, Manhattan)

PHOTOS (PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHESTER HIGGINS JR./THE NEW YORK TIMES; CHANG W. LEE/THE NEW YORK TIMES; JOSH HANER/THE NEW YORK TIMES; RICHARD PERRY/THE NEW YORK TIMES)